1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to window covering and more particularly to a interior shutter-blind system.
2. State of the Art
Manufactured window coverings are broadly divided into three categories: shades, blinds, and shutters. Shades are typically single pieces of material that cover a window area and either roll or collapse to uncover the window. These include roller shades, cellular shades, and roman shades. Blinds are typically multi-piece assemblies comprising a number of essentially identical and coordinated slats, louvers, or vanes to cover the window area, and with a deployment system to establish uniform spacing when they are deployed over the window and compress that spacing into a close-stacked array to uncover the window.
Most blinds have the ability to modulate light passage by adjusting the coordinated orientation of the vanes (tilting, collapsing, rotating) to allow a variable degree of open area between adjacent vanes. Examples include venetian blinds, vertical blinds, and cellular blinds. Shutters are multi-piece and blind-like in their spaced and coordinated modulation of light passage by tilting vanes, but the vanes are fixed on their tilt axes in a rigid frame. The frames are typically hinge-mounted to the wall of the window covered, so that the shutter may be swung away from the window to uncover it. Such framed shutters are heavy, difficult to install, expensive, and require strong wall structure to bear the weight at the hinges. For this reason they are almost always installed professionally at significant cost and have been restricted to expensive homes.
Accordingly, there is a need for an affordable shutter-like window covering that provides the upscale appearance of a shutter without the costly custom installation and awkward, difficult swing-out mounting, while incorporating the stackable elements of a blind for ease of installation, view, and cleaning.